Real time transport of audio, video, and other data commonly referred to as “media” may be manipulated and rendered using computers and/or digital appliances, such as a set top box. A digital appliance is a product that uses computer based technology and/or a telecommunication network or other packet based network to access, retrieve, interact with, report, and/or handle media or other information.
As computers and computer based appliances gain popularity, the demand for digital media streaming services also increases. This occurs, for example, because digital media streaming can be used to create enhanced consumer and business services. For example, a manufacturer of a refrigerator may install a digital appliance that connects the refrigerator's digital appliance to the Internet. A consumer can use the refrigerator's digital appliance to receive digital audio/video explaining how to prepare a favorite recipe.
The digital appliances and other computers can use real time media streaming services to render media while it is streamed from the media's server computer. Real time media streaming often is preferred over pure downloading since media streaming permits a consumer to view video and/or hear audio shortly after it is requested instead of waiting for a delayed download of the complete media and a subsequent playing of the media by the digital appliance.
Real time media streaming is difficult to implement on diverse networks, such as the Internet, corporate private networks, corporate intranets, and other packet based networking solutions. This is because real-time media applications typically are resource intensive and lack sufficient state control models to ensure proper quality of service.
Enhanced media streaming services generally compound the difficulties because multiple digital media streams are transmitted for enhanced services instead of a single digital media stream, such as for non-enhanced services. In the instances of enhanced services, current technologies treat each digital media stream as an individual session with little or no association to the viewer. Moreover, existing digital media streaming devices focus on the technical transmission and delivery of media, and place little control over the viewer management and media content management. Finally, the current streaming video networks lack sufficient notions of network-wide and multi-level resource allocation and control, trouble detection and automatic fail-over transparent to the viewer, and sophisticated anti-spoofing, denial of service prevention, and unauthorized access prevention techniques.